


Always

by emsly6454



Series: Always - A dramoine two shot? [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Memories, One Shot, Post-War, Tragic Romance, Unhappy Ending, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emsly6454/pseuds/emsly6454
Summary: "I love you Draco, always""I love you too Mi, always"--A dramoine one-shot
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: Always - A dramoine two shot? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2210625
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> this is my little one-shot distraction from Blood Bound, enjoy

**May 8 th, 2003**

Hermione is already awake when there’s a knock at her door to wake her up. She hears the muffled voice of Ginny coming from the other side, calling out a cheerful ‘rise and shine’, but that’s the last thing she wants to do. She’s getting married today.

She contemplates staying in bed a little longer, she couldn’t have slept more than three hours last night. Her choice to do just that is ripped out from under her by the distinct click of an _alohomora_ unlocking her door. A masculine hand attached to an arm pushes it out of the way, and Harry walks into the room. He offers her a broad smile as he levitates in a tray with tea and breakfast for her.

Hermione offers a small smile back to him, taking her tea and sipping slowly to obscure her face from Harry’s gaze. He kisses her cheek and excuses himself from the room, stopping at the threshold and turning to smile and congratulate her once more.

Her tea is wrong. The lemon wedge is too thick and the brew too watery. Someone’s added too much honey to her cup, and it clings to her tongue when she swallows. It reminds her of when she’d sneak into the kitchens of Hogwarts with him for late night talks, when neither of them could sleep.

\--

**November, 1994**

_“I don’t understand how you can even call that tea anymore” he exclaimed indignantly, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he shoved the cup back into her hands. “You’ve steeped it so long it tastes burnt!” She just laughs as he takes a large sip of his hot cocoa to rid himself of the lingering taste._

_“I told you that you wouldn’t like it Draco!” she manages between laughs. He just grumbles petulantly as he takes another sip from his mug. They spend almost every night in the kitchens together. They’re each other’s only confidants. She tells him about how scared she is for Harry in the Triwizard tournament, and he shares with her that he’s being forced into an understanding with the younger Greengrass sister._

\--

Hermione smiles softly to herself as she looks at her breakfast plate, spinach and scrambled eggs this morning. The mess of green reminding her of gillyweed -and by association- their first kiss.

\--

**February, 1995**

_“How is Harry supposed to rescue something from the black lake? Bubble head charms pop so easily and there will probably be a struggle from the Merpeople, he could die!”_

_“Relax Mi, you’re brilliant. If anyone can figure out something, it’s you. You could look through some herbology books instead of just focusing on spel-“She’d leapt forward at his words, so caught up that she didn’t think twice about pressing her lips to his. The first kiss of many._

\--

Her breakfast reverie is interrupted by Ginny re-entering the room with Angelina, Luna and Katie Bell. They’d offered to help her prepare for the big day. Luna draws her a bath, adding oils and fragrances to the warm water before they leave her to soak while they set up the vanity. The entire bathroom smells of lavender and hyacinths.

\--

**April, 1995**

_“Oh my, it’s beautiful” she gasped, the large clearing of the forest was a perfect circle -a faerie ring- full of brilliant white and purple flowers. The air smelled of lavender, like freshly sprayed perfume._

_“Almost as beautiful as you love” A pair of hands around her waist, the cold metal of his family signet ring pressing against the small sliver of exposed flesh above her jeans. She can almost feel the letters -Sanctimonia Vincet Semper- imprinting on her skin, she wishes they might brand themselves onto her, a promise of forever._

_It was the first time they ventured out of the safety of the kitchens together. They’d agreed to keep their romance to themselves, nobody would understand. They spend the day blissfully hidden from the real world, picking at the picnic basket the elves made for them._

_“A crown for my Gryffindor princess” he purrs playfully, placing a ring of beautiful hyacinths on her head with a dramatic flourish._

_“Well then, a ring for my Slytherin prince” she exclaims, fashioning one out of the long grass on the edge of the clearing and transfiguring it into a silver simple band, with a small ‘H’ on the inside._

_“I shall wear it forever!” He vows, pulling her in for a kiss on the bed of flowers._

\--

She’s pulled out of the bath and stood in front of a full-length mirror in just her undergarments. Katie starts charming glamours over the scars that litter her body since she’s the best at beauty spells. She starts at her ankles, erasing the small burns from the _gemino_ curse and the long one down her calf from a slicing hex. She gets to the large bluish-purple one that runs the expanse of her torso, stretching from between the swells of her breasts to just above her left hip. Hermione feels the tip of Katie’s wand touch the edge of the scar gently.

_\--_

**June, 1996**

_“It’s hideous, don’t look at me!” She cried, desperately trying to hide her body from his eyes with the hospital blanket. He’d come to visit her after the department of mysteries, waiting until the middle of the night to sneak in. His hand stops hers from pulling the blanket tighter around her body._

_“Nothing about you could ever be hideous Mi” he pulled her hands away from the blanket and slowly pulls it down and away from her abdomen. “I love every bit of you, always.”_

_“I love you too, always.” She promises him. He kisses the freshly healed blue lines where they stretch like lightning marks across her body. Following every mark tenderly until he’s intimately familiar with the new addition to her skin._

_\--_

When her scars are covered, she’s sat in front of a vanity as the girls tackle her hair and makeup simultaneously. Angelina is pouring potion after potion on her curls as Luna and Ginny work together, using a mixture of beauty charms and muggle makeup. There’s the feeling of a tube of lipstick being dragged against her lips.

\--

**June, 1996**

“ _You look so beautiful like this” he whispered to her one night in the room of requirement at the end of fifth year, his thumb dragging across her kiss-swollen lower lip. They were both naked, covered just barely by a tangle of bedsheets._

_“What? Sweaty with disastrous hair?” She snorted at her own words. He just smiled tenderly and pulled her closer to his body, wrapping his arms around her shoulders._

_“You could be wearing anything or nothing and I’d think you look beautiful Mi, I love all of you”_

_“I love all of you too Draco, always.” They fell asleep in each other’s arms for the first time that night, and Hermione had never slept as well as she did safely wrapped in his embrace._

_\--_

Its almost time, her dress is laid out on the bed for her. The girl’s leave her to get dressed on her own. Harry will be coming back soon to escort her down the aisle. She should put her dress on now. Hermione just continues to stare at is as memories assault her.

\--

**December, 1996**

_“Your dress was lovely this evening Mi” he murmured against her neck. His arms were looped firmly around her waist, holding her body against his. “Don’t know why you’d waste it on some twat like McLaggen”_

_“Don’t be silly Draco” she rolled her eyes at him before standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. “You know I had to bring someone to Slughorn’s dinner and Cormac is as harmless as they come”_

_“I just wish we could tell people; I hate having to keep you a secret” he rested his forehead against hers to meet her eyes. “I want to shout from the rooftops how much I love you.”_

_“I want that too” she promised him. “But you know why we can’t, especially now.” She brought her hand down to rest against his forearm where she knew the horrible ink lay. His eyes dulled at her words. “One day we will, when this is all over.”_

_“And then always?” he repeated their promise._

_“And then always.”_

\--

The dress was heavier than she thought it would be. The straps dug slightly into her shoulders and it clung tightly to her body, accentuating curves she didn’t even know she had. She’d just finished slipping on her shoes when Harry knocked at the door. He smiled at the sight of her. He told her how beautiful she looked and then held out her bouquet of flowers -baby’s breath and pink roses- Mrs. Weasley had made for her. She had to admit they were lovely.

Harry lead her out of the house by the arm, escorting her towards the gathering of people as the sound of soft music magically swelled when the aisle came into view. The walkway was littered with flower petals that matched her bouquet and the chairs of the guests wrapped in organza bows. At the front, standing under a magnificent arch of vines and flowers was her groom standing beside their officiator. She focused on her feet while she walked, careful not to let her heels sink into the grass.

Harry extended her hand to her groom-to-be and went to take his place alongside the other groomsmen. She finally lifted her gaze from the flowers in her hands to hand them to Ginny who stood behind her in her bridesmaid dress. Her groom took her hands in his and she was thrown into a memory of the day of the battle.

\--

**May, 1998, Battle of Hogwarts**

_“Mi!” He called out to her from across the grand staircase. She stunned the masked death eater she’d been facing off against and rushed to him, letting herself bury her face in his chest and take comfort in the familiar smell of his cologne._

_“You weren’t supposed to be here!” She exclaimed; her voice laced with panic. He was in danger if he was here. Nobody on their side knew about him, what if one of her friends attacked him._

“ _I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t here” he told her, taking both of her hands in his and pressing a kiss to her bloodied knuckles._

_\--_

The hands were wrong. They were marred with freckles instead of scars, and his rings were missing. She looked up quickly, and her alarm doubled when her gaze met blue eyes instead of grey, and red hair instead of white blonde. The flicker of the magical green lantern over his shoulder caught her eye and it took all of her self-control not to flinch when another memory pushed itself to the front of her mind.

\--

**May, 1998, Battle of Hogwarts**

_“Let’s run Draco” she pleaded, pulling on his arms to drag him away from the fray. “Harry will defeat him now; they don’t need me anymore.” He didn’t move from his spot in the middle of the entrance hall._

_“This is our war Hermione. We can’t run or hide. We have to fight.” He told her, tightening his grasp on his wand. Her mind was so muddled with worry and desperation that she didn’t see it until it was too late to do anything about it. The smallest flash of green and then she was watching as the light faded from his beautiful grey eyes. Then he was collapsed at her feet and she met the gaze of Lucius Malfoy, his wand still extended and the tip still glowing the sickly green._

_“I’d rather have no son at all than a son who would ever love a mudblood” he spat at her, aiming is wand at her chest. She almost let him do it, certainly death couldn’t hurt as bad as the hole that had just been gouged into her chest right over her heart. It felt like someone had reached into her body and grasped her lungs in their grip, squeezing the air out of her body from the inside._

_If it weren’t for the fact that her wand was still lit in the brilliant purple when she looked at it, Hermione would have thought someone else would have cast the sectumsempra at Lucius. She watched him collapse to the ground in a pool of his own blood for a moment before she fell to her knees in front of her lover._

_“No, no, no Draco, no” she cried desperately, shaking his shoulders and grasping his cheeks between her hands as though to will him awake. His eyes were still open and completely vacant as she looked into them, desperately searching for any glimmer of life, of him._

_The battle was still happening around her, but she didn’t care. None of it mattered without him. They could win a thousand wars but what was the point if Draco wasn’t there with her?_

_“Please Draco,” her tears were spilling down her cheeks so rapidly she couldn’t see through them properly, but she continued to cast shocking and rennervate spells in a desperate attempt to revive him. “You’re not allowed to die; you can’t leave me here without you.” She abandoned her wand as she babbled and resorted to attempting muggle CPR, the sound of his ribs cracking under her palms audible as she tried to pump his heart for him. “You promised me always dammit, you promised we would shout our love for each other off rooftops when the war was won.”_

_She continued to try and revive him until her arms gave out beneath her and she folded over his fallen form in the middle of the carnage, not caring that she was kneeling in broken glass or that there was a half-dead acromantula twitching less than a foot away from her._

_“How could you break your promise?” her voice cracked; her throat was raw from her crying as she continued to weep over his motionless form._

_That was how Luna found her some time later. The younger girl pulled her to her feet with a simple ‘Draco doesn’t need you anymore Mione, but we do, Harry does.’ She followed the blonde numbly out into the courtyard, mildly comforted that her hair was the same white-blonde shade as Draco’s._

_Everything was a blur after that point, sometime later she found herself sitting in a corner of the great hall while everyone celebrated around her. Luna approached her once more and dropped something small, hard and cold into her palm. When she looked down, she saw it was the ring she’d given Draco so many years ago; the one with the small H inside of it. She noticed beside the H he’d added an M, with the word always, between the two letters._

\--

Always wasn’t nearly long enough, now she was marrying Ron, who was looking at her with such love that it made her heart clench with guilt that all she wanted was for it to be Draco standing in front of her as the ministry official recited the binding spell. She watched blankly as the cords of golden magic wrapped around their entwined hands, looping through themselves intricately like some sort of dance.

She didn’t love Ron, not really. But he loved her, and Hermione didn’t care enough about her own life anymore to bother hurting him with her rejection. Their marriage would make him, Harry, the Weasleys, everyone else happy; everyone except her. She was okay with that; her happiness died the same moment the light in Draco Malfoy’s eyes did; but she knew he would never forgive her if she ended her life early to be reunited with him. Until she could be with Draco again, she would marry Ron, go through the motions of living her life while she waited.

The ring on her pinky finger glimmered underneath its permanent disillusionment charm when the magical bond flowed over it. Nobody could see the piece of jewelry except her, but she was the only one who needed to see it. It was her last piece of him, she couldn’t exactly visit him in the Malfoy family crypt.

“Do you, Ronald Billius Weasley, take Hermione Jean Granger as your bonded wife.” She zoned out for most of the ceremony and vows, not caring to pay attention when she could let her mind wander to every moment of the short time she’d shared with Draco. The voices continued in a muffled tone, as though she were on the wrong side of a muffling charm.

“I do” That’s Ron’s voice.

“Do you, Hermione Jean Granger, take Ronald Billius Weasley as your bonded husband.” More vows nonsense. She wondered what her vows to Draco would have sounded like; probably something absurd and traditional knowing him and his family. He would have worn an emerald green tie, she could picture in her mind how handsome he would have looked standing in front of her. The talking stopped, that’s her cue.

“I do” she echoed; a simpering smile plastered to her face.

_Always, Draco._

**Author's Note:**

> apologies for the sad ending everyone... I've written an alternate ending, comment if you're interested in me posting it!


End file.
